tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57477250728632326622018-03-06T02:50:19.101-08:00Berkeley Fermentation Loghsternoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5747725072863232662.post-18085176631104849072015-01-11T21:31:00.000-08:002015-01-11T22:37:29.267-08:00Micro Batch Vinegar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ltZKS12UUkM/VLNVdmdkhCI/AAAAAAAAC2w/Bgr7Q7rFxEw/s640/blogger-image--709306819.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ltZKS12UUkM/VLNVdmdkhCI/AAAAAAAAC2w/Bgr7Q7rFxEw/s320/blogger-image--709306819.jpg" width="320" /></a>Once you have your hands on an active mother, you can experiment with all the flavors available to you. &nbsp;The vinegar making process is extremely tolerant and it turns out alright without too much fuss. &nbsp; &nbsp;Out of laziness, I don't measure and tend to mix more by taste as I vary the ingredients depending on how intense I want the vinegar to turn out. &nbsp;Sometimes I will make a batch as small as a jam jar mostly to experiment with intensity. There exists a myriad ways of making vinegar but I tend to make micro-batches with high-end ingredients and the instructions below reflect just a rough guideline on how to make such a recipe.<br /><br />I normally throw the following four ingredients into a wide mouthed glass jar:<br /><br /><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Flavor base like a sweet syrup -&nbsp;You can start with raw fruits like pineapple or apple but I tend to favor fruit syrups (i.e. Elderberry Syrup/Lingonberry Syrup) as the base as the resulting vinegars come out more intense.&nbsp; The sugars have to convert to alcohol and then to vinegar.</li><li>Liquor - Since I'm going for quality, I tend to use specialized liquors like Elderberry Liquor or Creme de Cassis but you can also use cheap amaretto and rum with good results.&nbsp;</li><li>Water - I use anywhere between 1-1 to 2-1 water to syrup ratio. &nbsp;Some berry syrups can become too bitter at full strength.</li><li>Mother -You can put a tiny square inch of mother, a spoonful of gunk, or sheets of it which will greatly accelerate the conversion.&nbsp;</li></ol>I place the cloth covered jars on a dark shelf and forget about it for a month or sometimes 3 months. &nbsp; &nbsp;Don't forget to have a secure rubber band around the mouth of the jar as a fruit fly infestation is one of the annoying things that could happen to your vinegar. &nbsp; After about a month, you can see a thin translucent layer of mother forming. &nbsp;You can also taste it time to time to see how it transforms. &nbsp;Sometimes I'll use the vinegar in it's lightly fermented state.<br /><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />My most successful variations have been:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Double Elderberry Flower - Ikea Elderberry Syrup + &nbsp;<a href="http://stgermain.fr/">St. Germain Elderberry Liquer</a>&nbsp;: Best with fruit salads, esp. citrus and shaved fennel</li><li>Double Berry - IKEA Lingonberry Syrup + Creme de Cassis - Fabulous with beet salads&nbsp;</li><li>Carob Syrup + Rum - cracking with with persimmon salad.</li></ul>Moderately successful:<br /><ul><li>Apricot + Amaretto - boxed Apricot Juice + cheap Trader Joe's Amaretto.&nbsp;</li><li>buckwheat honey - just not as deep tasting as the carob syrup</li><li>lavender honey + rum - good but not great&nbsp;</li><li>pomegranate syrup + rum</li><li>blueberry syrup - good but not as interesting as lingonberry</li></ul>Not so successful:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>wine - tastes like vinegar but kind of uninteresting compared to fruit syrups</li><li>honey + sake- &nbsp;sake makes the vinegar taste flat and thin</li><li>pineapple - tangy but too harsh and boring compared to the fruit syrup vinegars</li><li>old raisins - &nbsp;prison hooch</li><li>molasses - a little bitter</li><li>brandy - not worth the end product</li></ul><br /><br /></div></div>hsternoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5747725072863232662.post-73252312359925983972013-09-04T20:24:00.000-07:002015-01-11T20:25:50.165-08:00Tepache<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HwBUbVrrhAU/UigDmJh35WI/AAAAAAAACKw/GjpNDHJQOnk/s640/blogger-image-1574244952.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; widows: 1;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HwBUbVrrhAU/UigDmJh35WI/AAAAAAAACKw/GjpNDHJQOnk/s320/blogger-image-1574244952.jpg" width="252" /></a><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; widows: 1;">Last week in Fruitvale, I was lucky enough to try tepache at a Mexican restaurant called Huarache. &nbsp;Originating from the Free and Sovereign State of Jalisco, &nbsp;tepache is a tangy fermented pineapple brew spiced with cinnamon and cloves. The taste was deliciously funky embodying all the complexity of fermentation.&nbsp;</span><br /><div style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; widows: 1;"><br />I was so intrigued, I made my own batch thinking I would boldly take it to a BBQ. But then I did not feel so confident to bring this living brew learning many lactating mothers would be present.<br /><br /></div><div style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; widows: 1;">As with any fermented product- no two batches are exactly alike and my version diverges quite a bit from Hurache's version as I also adapted the recipe a bit. Instead of the traditional dark cone of sugar - pilloncillo, I opted for coriander honey. I also added a knob of ginger for kick. &nbsp;I was pleased with the results as the left over parts of the pine apple- rind and core that normally go to compost- have transformed into a refreshing fizzy treat for after a hard day's work. Every day each cup tasted remarkably different due to the ballooning levels of wee beasties working hard to convert the sugars into alcohol. &nbsp;I strained it after four days and the brew is now effervescent and light with the color of lemonade.<br /><br />Such experiments in fermentation can open up the mind a bit more. &nbsp;Drinking a wild living brew makes one wonder how it ever came to be that the likes of Coke and Pepsi dominate our world. &nbsp;I have a number of close friends and family whose weakness is the erstwhile soda. &nbsp;Their addiction shows it's not so simple to choose differently even if you are willing to abandon such poison.</div></div>hsternoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5747725072863232662.post-51715994202295475212013-05-21T20:20:00.000-07:002015-01-11T22:39:40.471-08:00Mother of Vinegar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-x76F8C5bgzI/UZwAtDZNXRI/AAAAAAAACBY/bhLjewLAhyA/s640/blogger-image-1974982072.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #7d181e; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-x76F8C5bgzI/UZwAtDZNXRI/AAAAAAAACBY/bhLjewLAhyA/s320/blogger-image-1974982072.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-radius: 5px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; widows: 1;">Behold- the mother of&nbsp;vinegar. &nbsp; The white suspicious rubbery layer - the mother- is a mat of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetobacter_aceti">acetobacter</a>&nbsp; responsible for converting the alcohol to acetic acid a.k.a. vinegar. &nbsp;I had just a little square inch of it from a store-bought Italian raw apricot vinegar and from that inch, these discs grew. &nbsp;But also in the unfiltered vinegar body, you will see fuzzy mucus-like&nbsp;</span>suspended threads of the unformed mother. You can use both the soft gloop or the rubbery mat to get your vinegar kick started.<br /><br />Acetobacter is aerobic and thrives in oxygenated environments. &nbsp;Since I don't heat my vinegar, I've seen that even a small inch air gap in a closed bottle is enough oxygen for mother to grow.<br /><br />I started multiple batches three weeks ago and now they have transformed to proper mouth puckering vinegar. &nbsp;You can see below the mother separated in two layers- this was when I disturbed her too much. &nbsp;I've seen industrial mothers that are many inches thick but the home grown mother rarely gets thicker than a centimeter before peeling off.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-CQNPrSONDg4/UZwAreIXCSI/AAAAAAAACBQ/C0J5H-0Swmg/s640/blogger-image-466449732.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #7d181e; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-CQNPrSONDg4/UZwAreIXCSI/AAAAAAAACBQ/C0J5H-0Swmg/s320/blogger-image-466449732.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-radius: 5px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></div><br />One can eat the mother as it's purportedly good for your digestive health- it's chewy and slightly sweet and you can dip it in sugar and also dry it into a candy. &nbsp;But it's better you can share to get someone else started on the craft of vinegar making.<br /><br /><div style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px; widows: 1;">My first batch ever, I made a sweet rum wash with carob syrup and hid it in a dark warm corner- both leftover ingredients in my pantry that didn't really have any useful life. &nbsp;The tangy taste of this particular set has a deeper richness and complexity due to the minerals in the carob syrup. &nbsp;Carob vinegar is common in Cyrpus but I haven't seen an easy supply in the bay area so I'm curious how this compares.</div></div>hsternoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5747725072863232662.post-5162846080775253062013-05-05T15:00:00.000-07:002015-01-11T21:56:12.799-08:00Sauerkraut Sunday<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Times;">Yes it's sauerkraut Sunday and two Sundays in a row I've been busily chopping up red cabbage and red onion. &nbsp;For the initial ferment to get started,&nbsp;Lactobacillus&nbsp;needs an anaerobic environment. &nbsp; Koreans used to bury their urns in the ground to keep the air out. I just employ these Fido jars with an air tight seal. Despite the warnings of mold forming if the vegetable are above the brine, I suffered no such troubles with a Fido seal. &nbsp;</span><br /><div></div><div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><img border="0" class="bloggoimg" height="315" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-G8oo02x8mtg/UYdQXlBTK4I/AAAAAAAAB90/XFHDym77OW4/photo_691724.jpg" width="320" /></span></div><span style="font-family: Times;"><br /></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Times;">Don't try to jumpstart the sauerkraut with juice from the previous batches juice. &nbsp;The bacteria that's active in the later stages of fermentation is NOT the lactobacillus which needs to get the fermentation started.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Times;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times;">Last week's batch is chock full of bio activity and ready to eat although it's still on the slightly crunchy side. Sauerkraut is a living food and it's taste transforms daily. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Times;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="widows: 1;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8267/8708318540_fd921805c5_b.jpg" height="640" width="432" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="widows: 1;"></div></div></div></div></div></div>hsternoreply@blogger.com0